Articles

ELR Central is dedicated to providing educational material and guidlines to help advance the sport of ELR Shooting through open communiciation. Check out the selection of technical papers below which are free to download in .pdf format.

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ELR Articles

Accuracy and precision minded rifle shooters are continuously pushing the limits of long range rifle shooting. Those at the pinnacle of the sport, who routinely score first round hits on steel targets beyond a mile are calling their pursuit Extreme Long Range Shooting – ELR.

As long as there have been long range weapons and men to fire them, there has been a quest to hit targets at the farthest possible distance. This basic idea drive is the same thing that compels humans to race, climb mountains and excel at whatever they’re driven to do. In the pursuit of the most extreme, nothing is more profound than a world record. The idea of a world record is that it represents the greatest achievement within a certain discipline.

Regarding Extreme Long Range (ELR) shooting goes, many shooters have attempted hitting targets of various sizes at the maximum possible range. These attempts and accomplishments are valuable steps in the advancement in ELR shooting. However, in order to establish true ‘records’, it becomes necessary to set standards for target size, conditions, equipment, timing, and evidence of success. Without any guidelines in place for individuals to pursuit a common goal, there can be no comparison of achievements. A hit on a 3 foot target is more difficult than hitting an 8 foot target, and that’s easy compared to hitting a 100 foot rock. Likewise, hitting any size target on the first shot is more difficult than hitting it once out of 20 or 50 shots. Speaking of equipment, the max range of a 16-inch gun on an Iowa class battleship is over 24 miles. Clearly some standards are required to scope the goals and intent of any legitimate record.

Long Range rifle matches held at distances within 1000 yards have very well established rules and courses of fire. However there are increasingly more matches being held at Extreme Long Range (ELR) which haven’t been as formally defined. Individuals and organizations have been putting on ELR matches without any standardization or definition of best practices. Although it’s not necessary to nail down a single course of fire or highly restrictive rules, the community may benefit from a common list of best practices; elements of ELR Matches which are generally agreed upon as what makes ELR matches enjoyable for shooters and tractable for match directors.

The following criteria describes a set of ELR Match guidelines and ‘best practices’ . This information comes from polling a focus group of ELR shooters, competitors and match directors. No-one is obligated to observe these guidelines, this is just the criteria for deciding which events are promoted by ELR Central, and can be useful for anyone considering hosting and ELR match. This is what is commonly considered to be the elements of modern ELR Matches.

Technical Articles

Aerodynamic drag is an important consideration for accurate long range trajectory prediction. The data and methods used to account for aerodynamic drag can make or break a long range shot. This article will describe how aerodynamic drag affects modern small arms trajectory predictions, and how drag modeling has evolved from its meager beginnings to its current level of refinement. This article goes in to G Form Factors and Custom Drag Modeling as well.

The question about where the wind matters the most is one that is extremely common and one that we’ve received dozens of times. Having studied the wind for a number of years, we’ve compiled this article. It is intended to investigate how the wind’s influence increases with distance, as well as exploring how wind affects the bullet as it moves from the shooter toward the target.

With the wide variety of rounds available on the market today one would think that there is a round for every need and for every purpose. It is true to a certain extent wildcatting is alive and well today for a number of reasons. Various wildcats have been developed over time all with the same goal in mind, to increase performance and / or fit a certain amount of performance into a certain platform. Let’s take a look at the more common ideas and techniques of wildcatting cartridges.

In this article Paul Phillips discuss one of the keys to success in ELR Shooting, Teamwork. With decades of experience from Military to Competitive shooting, this article will help the shooter understand the benefits and proper way to implement teamwork for success in the demanding competitive field of ELR shooting.

In the realm of long and extreme range shooting there is a “dark art” considered to be bordering on voodoo by some, talked about by few people and written about even less. Welcome to long range shooting over terrain features, you will not find much written, videoed or taught about the effect that terrain has in concert with wind on the flight of your bullet, so let us begin.

Magazine Articles

When shooting long-range as part of a team in real world conditions, all components need to come together—the rifle, bullets, optics, ballistics program, bipod and team members—and work seamlessly. In this unforgiving world resides The King of 2 Miles (KO2M). Last summer, the KO2M competition was held at the NRA Whittington Center in Raton, NM, as a two-day extreme long-range (ELR) match. This is a team event—prone rifle shooting with a bipod at distances up to two miles. Teams consist of one shooter and up to two wind coaches/spotters helping.

In between this year’s National High Power Rifle Mid Range and Long Range Championships at Camp Atterbury, IN, the NRA debuted the One-Mile Club Extreme Long Range (ELR) Match. ELR is generally thought of as precision rifle shooting beyond 1500 yards. Bright and early at 7:30 a.m. on July 20, the order of firing for this inaugural match was done by random draw.

In today’s world where target distances keep going farther out, making a successful long range shot during competition can no longer be done alone. While the shot is made by the trigger puller, often overlooked is the team aspect of Extreme Long Range (ELR) competition. Although the leaderboards and blog posts will rain praise on a single shooter’s name, ELR is actually a three-man team sport. The person pulling the trigger isn’t competing by themselves, it’s the assistance of teammates that help them hit the target.

The road is rough and rocky, the tires of the SUV kicking up dust and dirt clods as we make the long journey to a rarely visited corner of the NRA’s Whittington Center in Raton, New Mexico. We pass locked gates, steep grades, and even a long-abandoned mining village along the way. The goal is a 2-mile target, and we’re tagging along with the Applied Ballistics ELR (Extreme Long Range) shooting team as they practice for the King of 2 Miles (KO2M) competition happening in mere days.